Iran Enterprise Institute

The Iran Enterprise Institute (IEI) registered online November 9, 2006, as a domestic non-profit corporation with the Government of the District of Columbia. (File No.: 263350)

The IEI is a "privately funded nonprofit drawing not just its name but inspiration and moral support from leading figures associated with the American Enterprise Institute," Laura Rozen wrote November 13, 2006, in The American Prospect.

"The Iran Enterprise Institute is directed by a newly arrived Iranian dissident whose cause has recently been championed by AEI fellow and former Pentagon advisor Richard Perle. Amir Abbas Fakhravar, 31, served time in Iran's notorious Evin prison before arriving in Washington in May [2006], with Perle’s help. Fakhravar, who advocates U.S. intervention to promote secular democracy in Iran, now seeks Washington’s backing to lead an organization that would unite Iranian student dissidents," Rozen wrote.

"Incorporation papers received last week by the Washington, D.C., corporate registration office indicate that among those on the Iran Enterprise Institute's initial board of director are Fakhravar; Bijan Karimi, a professor of engineering at the University of New Haven; and Farzad Farahani, the Los Angeles-based half-brother of the U.S. leader of the exile Iranian political party," the Constitutionalist Party of Iran (CPI) in the United States of America, "which is closely tied with Fakhravar," Rozen wrote.